A journal of my crocheting and knitting progress, occasionally interrupted by real life.

Tuesday, December 18, 2007

Fashion Crochet by Caroline Horne

In my never-ending web search for interesting crochet books, I often stumble across older titles that sound good but there's no picture of the cover and no real information about what is in the book. This is one of those books. Really, that is why I decided to just list my books here as I attempt to get some sort of organization to my pattern stash.

Back in 1969, Coats & Clark revised a little British book and brought it to America. It is the book shown here - Fashion Crochet by Caroline Horne. Caroline Horne introduces herself as a teacher of Fashion Crochet and I know she put out a couple of crochet books.

Fashion Crochet contains 14 patterns of "attractive chic clothes". And it does have a good list of items with instructions of how to make a handbag, pants, hat, coat, dresses, and slippers. There's even a pattern for a pair of stockings!

But readers of modern pattern books would be surprised to see how the projects are presented. There's no full-color pictures here. Just black-and-white drawings, although there are also some small B&W photos of stitch samples. And the directions include a period after each abbreviation, something that modern books don't do.

It's an interesting book but I probably won't make anything from it. Although...if I do get really bored one day, I might try the stockings. The gauge is 5 grps. to 2 inches.